George Mason University
Approved Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting
April 28, 2004

Present: J. Bennett, M. De Nys, E. Elstun, D. Kuebrich, P.
Stearns

Chair Jim Bennett opened the meeting at 9:07 am.

I. Approval of Minutes
The Minutes of the March 31, 2004 Executive Committee meeting were approved
as distributed.

II. Announcements
A. Faculty representative to the GMU Foundation’s BOT
The GMU Foundation Board of Trustees and its Nominating Committee will review
the list of Faculty Senate nominees and will make a final decision on the faculty
representative at its June 4, 2004 meeting.

B. FSVA Bylaws and Governor’s Bill HB64
The Faculty Senate of Virginia has revised its Constitution and Bylaws, and
all faculty senates have been asked to vote to approve the Bylaws revisions.
The Governor has also signed the BOV bill (HB64) that states “the boards
of visitors of any four-year state institution of higher education may appoint
one or more nonvoting, advisory faculty representatives to their respective
boards.” A motion to approve the Bylaws revisions will be submitted as
part of the External Relations Committee’s annual report.

C. Teaching Effectiveness Committee/Teaching Evaluations
Per the request of the Committee Chair, a motion to create an Ad Hoc Committee
on the Teacher/Course Evaluations will be submitted as part of the Effective
Teaching Committee’s annual report.

III. Old Business
Most of the Senate Standing Committees’ business items have been completed
this year. The Committee Chairs will let the Clerk know of any pending business
for the 2004-2005 academic year so that the website can be updated. It was decided
that the Communication with the BOV Committee will be disbanded at the next
Senate meeting; it is now redundant since the faculty has a seat on the Faculty
and Academic Standards Subcommittee and two representatives to the BOV itself.

B. Budget & Resources
The Committee is concerned about perceived summer compensation inequities in
the School of Management between the full-time professors and the adjuncts who
teach during the summer. The Provost stated that paying 10% for SOM professors
to teach a second course would cause an unacceptable budget overload because
their base salaries are high compared to other schools. He admitted that the
adjuncts are paid above matrix, but that the university has to do that for SOM
and IT&E because of market forces. It was agreed that there is ambiguity
in the Memo of Understanding on this issue.

C. Faculty Matters
The Committee will be submitting a motion concerning Emeritus Faculty, a report
on summer school lab compensation, and follow-up recommendations on scientific
misconduct.

The Committee has been asked to look into the designation “Administrative
Faculty,” since it appears to have very broad usage covering everyone
from the university president to librarians to coaches.

The Faculty Senate Office has received 347 Faculty Evaluation of Administrators
surveys (36%), which is a lower return rate than last year. Faculty members
have again expressed concern about confidentiality and demographic information.
An
e-mail will be sent to all faculty members to encourage them to fill out the
surveys and send them in.

D. Nominations
Evans Mandes and Susan Trencher have agreed to be the faculty representatives
on the Food Services Contract Committee.

E. Organization & Operations
No report.

V. New Business
The issue of grading patterns in the General Education courses will be covered
in the General Education Committee’s annual report.